the gang
by francis 98
Summary: James, Sirius, Remus and Peter are the most infamous people to ever walk the corridors of hogwarts, this story follows the inseperable quartet in their sixth year at the school. Please read and review it'll make my day, flamers are welcome i suppose.
1. The beginning

I own nothing that you recognise as J.K.'s work

It was just another quiet day in the Gryffindor common room. That is until the sixth year girls came running in screaming, wearing blue pyjamas, all except one girl, Jane Lupin Remus Lupin's twin sister, she doesn't mind the colour blue, plus her pyjamas were the colour they were originally, light green.

The resultant effect of the screaming and shouting was that several boys in the far corner of the room started roaring with laughter, this then sparked two immediate reactions: the boy's started to run to the portrait hole with the girls in hot pursuit.

Sometime later the boys all returned, triumphant looks on their faces, the boys that were in the common room cheered them on.

"Well that was a good way to spend half the day." Lupin said with a massive grin on his face.

"I wonder how long it will take them to get us to change them back?" questioned Peter.

"They won't Evans will change them back soon enough, no they probably just wanted revenge on us." James stated coolly.

"Well then what can we do now?" Sirius asked a bored tone colouring his voice.

"Stay in now I suppose, not much fun in torturing the same people twice." James stated, also bored.

"I agree with James." Peter said at once

"You would do worm. How about we plan next month's stroll?" Lupin stated and then asked.

"Sounds like a plan moony" Sirius and James chorused, at which point both boys started laughing, followed by the other two.

They stayed up late into the night planning next month's adventure, when suddenly they heard someone come up the stairs; they immediately stopped talking and pretended to be asleep.

"It won't work I know you are up boys." Lily's voice sounded from the door.

"I just came in to let you know that I know Remus' 'furry little problem' and I also know that being unregistered animagi is illegal. I also wanted to ask padfoot when he is going to ask Jane out, it's obvious that you like her Sirius." She stated calmly.

"I'm going to state something now Lilly. But out of my business." Sirius growled, fury evident in his voice.

Lilly walked out of the dormitory laughing at Sirius Blacks reaction to her teasing.

Sorry I haven't put a lot more meat into the story but it is hard when you're revising for GCSEs, more will be said in chapter two please read and review.


	2. Sirius scores a date

As before I own nothing notable as J.K's work

Sirius was busy that morning pondering on whether or not Lily would tell Jane about him liking her, he was so paranoid he ended waking up every hour on the hour expecting to hear laughter from the girls room, by seven o'clock he had had enough of trying to sleep and so just went down to the common room.

He thought about ways to tell her on the way downstairs but was brought out of his musings by a person talking to him, when he actually was listening he thought the voice sounded very familiar to him.

"Sirius?" A worried voice asked the boy. "Are you sleep-walking? Or are you thinking?" The voice asked again, this time Sirius realised it was Jane and as soon as he worked that out he ran back upstairs as fast as possible and then crept into the boy's dormitory after doing that he then snuck back into his bed and pulled the covers up over his head.

He decided this was going to be the worst end to a weekend ever, and it was only the third day of term, how could he have been so foolish to think that he would be able to face her even after the long summer break, he had no idea that Jane was sitting downstairs nonplussed at what had just happened, she had never seen him act that way and decided to find out what had happened, she followed him upstairs and managed to sneak into the room before he closed the door.

"I need to talk to you, Sirius." The covers were pulled away from his head by Jane and she then sat down on the edge of the bed near him.

"About what?" Sirius was worried that Lily had told Jane about his feelings for her.

"About why you ran out of the common room like that, I've never seen you like this in all of the five years I've known you. What's wrong, that's what I want to know."

"Nothing, I'm fine Jane, why wouldn't I be?" Sirius wanted this conversation to end before anything bad could happen.

"Are you sure? Because I would be willing to help you if you had any problems, all you have to do is ask."

"Seriously Jane, I'm fine, but I'll bear that in mind, thanks for the offer it was really kind."

"Right, now that's sorted do you want to come back downstairs? Because I mean you're already awake and now that there's no problems between us I just thought it would be better for me to have some company."

"Yeah, sure why not, I have homework to do anyway and if I do it now it means I get more free time later."

"Just make sure Lily doesn't catch you saying that or she'll help you study, because she's getting her grades fine and she wants to offer her services to any NEWT level students that are struggling, she's even threatened to start a study club and force everyone struggling with their studies to come."

"Well then, I'm steering clear of Lily till the exams finish." Sirius joked while checking his essay for Professor Binns.

"How are your studies going?" Jane asked

"They're fine thanks, how are yours?"

"It's going well, thanks."

"What are you doing for lunch, Jane?" Sirius asked with a plan in mind.

"Ummm, well I was planning on sitting with Lily and that, why? Do you want me to sit with you?" Jane was furious for not offering to sit with him before.

"No. uhh well sort of I mean I was wondering if you would come and... No, it's stupid. Forget I said anything," Sirius could have sworn he felt himself going red.

"No, tell me Sirius, I want to know what you had in mind." Jane was wondering what he had meant to say before he stopped himself.

"Well I was going to suggest we eat lunch out in the grounds by the lake, just the two of us. I mean you don't have to I just thought it would be nice to enjoy the summer while it was still here."

"Sure, why not, Lily won't mind if I skip lunch, especially if I say I'm with you." Jane was enthusiastic now.

"Please don't say you're with me, Lily will laugh at my technique."

"What technique?" Jane was extremely perplexed at that.

"Well she might see this as me trying to ask you out, as she seems to think I have strong feelings for you," Sirius let out a small nervous laugh at this to show he didn't but it wasn't very convincing to him.

"Oh, ok I won't tell her who I'm with. I suppose it'll save me from ten million questions from her when I get back."

"Great, so I'll meet you by the lake then, around half twelve ok?" Sirius was ecstatic; his plan seemed to have worked without a hitch. That was until.

"Hah! Shame Sirius, I know about who she's meeting at the lake already, now at least, but still hah!" Lily came into the common room with a triumphant grin on her face; "I will also want details from you Jane when you get back."

Sirius buried his head in his face. _Why is it that this one plan, out of all the ones I have done, had to go wrong at the last moment, why?!_

"I was wondering when you would pluck the courage up to do it, I had a good laugh earlier when you saw her and then legged it back up the stairs, I've never seen you move so fast, with the exception of yesterday of course but oh man that was hilarious."

"What are you going on about Lily? Sirius is just friends with me," Jane was confused. She knew that Sirius thought Lily was reading too much into his awkwardness around her but she knew Sirius too well, he was a player, she would probably be just another notch in his bedpost.

"Right of course, I'm sure you want more from this friendship don't you Sirius?"

"Bloody hell Lily, drop it!" Sirius growled in her direction.

"Uhh, Sirius I think I'm gonna leave the picnic if you don't mind." Jane was panicking now, she had been right.

"Awww Sirius, your love interest just rejected you, how do you feel?"

"Butt out, Lily... unless you want a more fetching pair of pyjamas, and I'll make it permanent this time." Sirius' blood was boiling now

"Wait, hang on, you love me? I thought you were just trying to get me into bed with you," Jane laughed with relief.

"No, I do love you, Lily guessed right," Sirius was miserable now, he had his fair share of girls it was true but it was easy for him to be around the ones he had, Jane, she was different, he felt awkward around her, he couldn't explain it but she was different to him than the rest.

"Well then I will come on the picnic then, it'll be fun, and it looks like we'll have nice weather for it as well." Jane was happy now, ecstatic in fact.

"Cool. Remember, meet me by the lake at half past twelve," Sirius had perked up a bit now

"Ok, see you then. Bye for now Sirius," Jane smiled and walked out of the common room, Lily trailed after her.

Sirius had unknowingly stood up, so he sat himself back down and smiled to himself.

He then heard the pad of feet and recognised the footfalls as Remus' he hastily put the homework that was on the table away in his bag and sat with his legs up resting his feet on the table, his favoured lounging position, he mostly used it when he was happy, which led to Remus' comment "What's put you in such a fine mood Pad, you aren't much of a morning person, did you put the tally up to thirty or something?"

"Nope, I scored a date with your sister. I promise I will not use her, it's different this time mate, you've seen how I am with her, I swear it is, just give me a chance to prove myself," Sirius pleaded.

"I hope this goes well, for her sake I haven't seen her happy in ages, that's all I want, it'd be pretty good to have you as a half brother, better than Snape or Worm."

"Ugh don't mention marriage yet Moony. It's only our first date and why would Snivellus be a contender for your sister's hand anyway; she thinks he's a creep."

"True and congratulations mate I'm happy for you and my sister, shame the tally ends at twenty nine, it puts you in second place though, Prongs got his to thirty one last night, I'm surprised you 

managed to sleep at all last night, he was going at it till about 11 o'clock. He really is competitive isn't he?"

"Ha-ha, he was faking it, well I mean he was making his racket but he just used a spell to get the woman's voice, couldn't you hear the slight accent in the voice, no one sounds like that in our year, so it's a draw." This put Sirius in a better mood than before.

"Come again?" "Your tally stood at twenty nine at last count, don't tell me you bumped it up last night?"

"Yep, I'm more discreet than James could ever be, and I just timed her in with James, he has a deeper voice so he just drowned her out for me, I'd better thank him when he gets up." Sirius had a massive grin on his face

"Oh, he's going to be so depressed now, but I don't care." Remus had a grin on his face as well.

A minute later James walked into the common room, he saw Sirius and Remus change their facial expressions to one of polite boredom, he asked them "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing, did you have a nice night prongs?" Sirius asked

"Didn't you hear?" He asked puzzled

"Oh yes I heard, I heard you fake it." Sirius had his massive grin back on his face

"I did not fake it" James said calmly

"You did, no one has a foreign tinge to their accent here, at least not in this year, and we said we would keep it in this year, so we draw." Sirius was proud he had kept a draw with his friend, not many people could boast they had even managed to do that against James.

"You didn't, because even now my tally stands at thirty, one more than you at last count."

"Ah, but I had one last night, thanks to your racket I was able to stay unnoticed, so we have a draw." Sirius' grin spread even wider as he saw James turned depressed.

"And even better than that I scored a date with Jane, moony doesn't mind, he's actually pleased, because it was either me, Snivellus or Worm." Sirius started to laugh at the fact that Worm was still hopeful at having a shot at Jane.

"Best break it to them gently though pad, eh, I mean Snivelly's fragile as it is at the moment and Worm will be devastated," stated James.

"I suppose, I have to get ready now, but first breakfast," Sirius added the comment about breakfast because his stomach had just growled.

-

A/N: hope you like the chapter, please tell me if you did by reviewing, I was also thinking about posting a karaoke night at one point in the story, I would also like opinions about that in the form of a review. If the idea was approved there would be a wide variety of songs so that all audiences are happy.

I would also like to dedicate this to Ellie my patient friend who puts up with me and proof read this chapter for me.


	3. the beginnings of a prank

Disclaimer: I own nothing recognisable as J.K.'s, such as plots and characters; I also want to thank the people who have supported my story. I would also like to clarify that the karaoke match would be hosted during the marauders summer holidays where one of the marauders would find out about the event and gather up some people to play it with, including enemies, so they can play against each other.

First, a recap of the last comment from the last chapter, just so you don't get confused.

"I suppose, I have to get ready now, but first breakfast."

With that Sirius raced out of the common room and down to the great hall, he skidded to a halt outside and paced casually into the hall, he found a random space in between Alice Longhurst and Frank Longbottom and started to pile his plate with food.

"How are you Sirius?" Frank asked him from his right hand side.

"I'm fine thanks Frank and you?" Sirius asked politely.

"I'm good thanks, it's a good thing you're eating a lot of breakfast, you'll need it for later."

"Whadyou mean?" Sirius asked with a mouthful of fried egg and bacon

"Well uh you see uh Wood told me to tell you he was holding a practice during lunch, he would have got an earlier one but the Slytherins beat him to it."

"WHAT!" Sirius' outburst caused a lot of heads to turn, and some of the teachers cast stern looks down at him.

"Wood had to boo…" Frank started to say but Sirius cut him off with a sharp reply

"I know Frank, sorry for the blunt reply but I had plans at lunch so I'm a bit annoyed that's all, thanks for telling me."

"No problem Sirius." Frank stated

"I have to find someone now, excuse me." Sirius got up and scanned the length of the Gryffindor table looking for Jane, eventually he found her in the middle of the table so he walked over to her, the girls surrounding her started giggling at Sirius because Jane hadn't noticed him yet, that was when she looked up to see a shadow looming over her, she turned around to find Sirius looking down at her.

"I'm sorry but uh I can't make lunch, how about we talk about what we can do in the common room later, after you've had breakfast perhaps."

"Sure, see you soon Sirius."

Sirius started the long walk up to the seventh floor, and miserably told the fat lady the password, he crawled in and sat in his favourite armchair by the fire and sat there sulking about Woods strict training regime, he was by far the best chaser in the school and mostly showboated during training anyway, so he failed to see why Wood felt the need to keep him and James in the team training sessions or why they needed to train at all. Sirius knew all of Woods likely formations and knew all the others that were available to them as a team without putting them under fire of opposition scoring; he even helped wood devise new formations by mixing known formations together.

Ugh. He even wondered if Wood had heard of a social life he even wondered if he had ever had a girlfriend.

Just then Jane entered the common room and came and sat opposite Sirius "So, thought of anything to do Mr Black?" Jane asked a slight smile playing on her lips

"We could go for a meal at sunset, under the invisibility cloak. There would be less people watching us then, what do you make of that plan miss Lupin?"

"I think it sounds great." Jane stated, she was exited now, her reckless side was taking her over, it would be fun to walk around the castle at night plus they wouldn't be caught because if they went far enough around the bank of the lake they would enter into the forbidden forest.

"Will you come with me to the Quidditch pitch now?"

"Yeah, why are you going down there though?"

"Because Mr no social life Wood is making us train during lunch, that's why I couldn't make it, I'm sort of glad he did now, because otherwise we wouldn't have been forced into making this change of plan."

"So am I, less people will see us, not that I'm not glad to be with you, I just mean it'll be more private. And less gossip about us will go around this way as well; I think we should do this every date."

"I agree whole heartedly with that, I'm sick of my love life being the subject of everyone's gossip." Sirius stated bitterly

"Shall we go down to the pitch then? You can show me your legendary moves" Jane teased

"Yeah, sure." Sirius replied, a big grin on his face, when they got to the portrait hole he said to Jane. "Ladies first." He pointedly stood back to show that she would have to go first.

At the Quidditch pitch, they split up, Jane headed toward the stands, and Sirius to the changing rooms, he unchained his broom and put his Quidditch robes on, he then proceeded through the player's tunnel and mounted his broom, he then started his most complex set of dodges and dives, he even threw in a couple of playful flips to show he wasn't really exerting much effort.

He carried this on for another ten minutes, before he realised that the other members of his team had been watching him from the ground, brooms in hand, mouths hanging wide open in awe. He had never really tried in training before and when it was game time his team mates were always too busy with their own jobs to pay him much attention. That is minus the other chasers, Jessica Swanson and Elizabeth Grey, who had to watch him, in case he decided to pass to them, or if he needed help, just like he needed to watch them, except his broom had better turning ability than theirs so that coupled with his reflexes meant he had fewer crashes in training.

Sirius flew down to the ground with a sheepish look on his face. Wood was the first to recover and he simply asked Sirius. "Where've you been hiding those skills Black?"

"Nowhere Wood, you just never look properly during the games." Sirius replied

This made a couple of people laugh. "Right, Black, Potter I want you to sit out today."

"And do what Wood?"

"I don't know, go chat up some girls, I hear you're good at that. I don't want to see you round here though, or I'll think about making you train on your day off."

"Cheers Wood, what's put you in such a good mood?" Sirius asked astounded

"Nothing you need to know about Black, now go before I change my mind." He told them sternly

"Ok, thanks again Wood." James called over his shoulder; he had immediately broken into a run after Wood's last sentence.

Sirius on the other hand started to make his way up to the stands to Jane "I've got free time now, Wood just told me and James to go, so I was wondering would you uh want to spend time with me?" Sirius felt the awkwardness come back to him, which was the bad thing about not flying, he had to think about things like Jane and homework and plans for their monthly adventure.

"Sure, I'd love to spend time with you Sirius." Jane said.

"Uh well I wasn't really prepared for this so I uh have no idea of what we can do."

"Well what do you do well, asides from flying?"

"I'm very good at pranking I suppose."

"Right, do you have any particular people in mind that you want to prank?" Jane asked.

"Well I was thinking of professor Slughorn." Sirius smirked.

"Sounds like fun." Jane replied with an evil grin on her face.

"So how are we going to pull off our prank on our dear potions master?" Jane asked.

"Jams will kill me for saying this, but he has two invisibility cloaks, he uses one, and he has put the other one up for the use of the marauders." "It's what me, James, Remus and Peter have decided to be called amongst ourselves." Sirius added the comment because Jane looked rather confused.

"So we use the marauders cloak to sneak in there and pull off the prank." Sirius then finished

"Oh right, James has _two_ invisibility cloaks?" Jane asked incredulously.

"Yep, one was a family heirloom the other he found somewhere, he won't tell anyone so don't try, well unless your name is Lily Evans, he'd do anything for her." Sirius added.

"Yeah I did get that impression, _never_, I fail to see how he would when he constantly sleeps with girls and then teases and mocks Lily, he also terrorises Snape in front of her when he knows full well that Lily is friendly with him. I'm not saying that the greasy fur ball is innocent but he could show compassion even if it is only in front of Lily." Jane felt better after her rant about James', 'do anything for Lily attitude'.

"Well when you put it like that it doesn't sound so good, I'll have a word with him after our picnic." Sirius promised

"Good good, shall we get to setting up our prank now?" Jane asked.

"No setting up required I was thinking more along the lines of his jars spontaneously combusting." Sirius told Jane

"Nice." Jane replied with a smirk.


	4. the prank

Disclaimer: I own nothing recognisable as J.K's work as per usual.

Sirius made his way up to the Gryffindor tower to get the cloak, he didn't meet many people on the way up, most of the students were outside enjoying the sunshine. _Another reason to postpone the picnic_ Sirius thought to himself as he rounded the corner to the corridor where the fat lady's portrait stood proud upon the wall, "password?" the fat lady asked of Sirius in a tone that befitted an upper class lady, such as a lady or a baroness, "Billywig" Sirius responded in a hurried voice, the portrait swung open to reveal the hole that is the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.

He raced to his dormitory and then yanked the cloak from out of under James' bed and then proceeded to hurtle back down the stairs through the portrait hole and down into the dungeons to find an impatient Jane tapping her toes on the floor, the only sound available in the deserted corridors was that of Jane's feet. "At last, what did you do, get lost? I've been waiting for at least a half hour, what took you so long?"

"I got there as fast as I could, I can only run so fast you know" Sirius panted.

"I know I just got extremely bored of having to wait for you, I must've had about twenty Slytherins ask me out already, and some of them were pint sized" Jane responded sounding extremely aggravated

Sirius let out a bark of laughter at the comment about pint sized kids asking her out

"It's not funny, Sirius Black, and unless you want me to strangle you while you sleep I would stop right now!" Jane snarled at Sirius

Sirius shut up and stood stock still

"Better" Jane said, calming down a little and setting off down the corridor to professor Slughorn's office at a normal pace.

Sirius matched her stride easily as he was a good foot taller than her, he then proceeded to walk in front of her and stop outside the door to professor Slughorn's office, he then wrapped her and himself up in the cloak and they then proceeded into the poorly lit office.

As usual professor Slughorn was at his desk marking quizzes from the previous days lessons, a rather tedious and boring exercise even for a teacher such as Horace Slughorn, he was the sort that was always in good humour and liked the odd joke here and there, naturally he took a shine to the marauders straight away for this specific talent and they were rewarded with information regarding certain entrances and exits in the school grounds and gossip from the staff for their practical jokes in lessons, it was win, win for them all.

They then went to the potions masters' personal store of potions and Jane started to levitate them around the room, Sirius with inept placement started setting them alight, all three of them were treated to a dazzling fireworks display as the liquids and gasses gave off all sorts of reactions. In the heat of the moment and suspecting a possible attack Horace Slughorn whipped out his wand and…..

Find out what happens to the culprits of the mysterious 'attack' on Horace Slughorn in the next chapter. I won't carry on if I don't get enough reviews though, I'll set a target of about 15 maybe. Hopefully you lot will meet my target, I can think of a few more ideas to get things interesting.

This chapter goes out to my friend Seemah, who was the wonderful person that supplied this cliff hanger to me.


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